Hey Tom, thanks for this tutorial – it’s a good thing to get a tutorial like this from a trusted person like you and not from the thousands of (sometimes) confusing articles about passive income/affiliate marketing/clickfunnels and what not that I come across from time to time, I am making a living as a web designer and I have been thinking of pivoting from design and creative work to focus on passive income but didn’t know where to start. This is the perfect foundation article I have seen so far and I ‘d like to ask if you have any further reading/guides/videos on affiliate marketing that you’d recommend. I like to do my deep research before starting :) One more thing, there are some broken or missing images in this article, it could be my browser but check from your side too because there are quite a few images (e.g your Mercedes) that are missing. Thanks
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A good example is the program that the Copy Paste Commissions system is referring visitors to at the moment, which is the Automated Daily Income program. Despite the browser still reading “copypastecommissions.com” after you click on the button, you’re actually no longer on the CPC website – it’s trickery, you’re actually on the website of the Automated Daily Income system… A scam I previously exposed on this blog.
The Guides also describe information that sellers should disclose in their ads so that consumers are not misled. For example, if you sell synthetic or imitation gemstones, you must tell the consumer that the gemstone is not natural. In addition, you should tell consumers if the pearls that you are selling are cultured or imitation, so that consumers are not misled about the type of pearl being offered.
“I literally screamed so loud that I shocked even myself! … It is hard to describe the feeling one gets when one makes the first money from blogging. … I have felt that feeling several times since then, but nothing compares to the first time when I actually did make some money from my blog. And this sale came less than one year after starting my blog!”
Starting an online business should not be that expensive. Learning how to become an affiliate marketer also shouldn’t cost you that much. The method SAN is teaching people to create an online business is not the right one. Businesses are built by keep working until you earn a profit and then reinvesting your profits to make more and so on. Not by spending thousands of dollars in advance hoping someday you will earn your money back. Most people who join SAN won’t get their money back. Experienced marketers who know how to sell high-ticket affiliate products and have the budget to do it have a chance making money. Beginners or people who don’t have money for ads i seriously doubt if they are going to make a profit.
What a great review. You’ve certainly done your homework. Based on your research here, there is no reason why anyone who reads it would sign up for SAN without their eyes wide open. Go for it, if you want to chuck away bundles of hard earned cash with very little to show for it and no guarantee for success. So many people enter into these programs with starry eyes and end up getting burned. Affiliate marketing takes time, diligence and hard work. People can be successful with the right training and support that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Thanks for your article. It’s going to help in making informed decisions when it comes to the business of affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing also is a very broad term; under this umbrella there are several different strategies that can be employed to generate affiliate revenue. The most appropriate and lucrative method (or methods) can depend on a number of factors, including your site’s niche and characteristics of your audience. Below is an overview of some of the most popular affiliate marketing implementations, along with examples of each. Click here to read more about the proven affiliate marketing strategies.
Use automation. Use automation technology to send thousands of emails to customers on your marketing list. Software can segment your list and send targeted, timed emails to your customers. It makes your customers feel like you are reaching out to them personally. Email automation software companies include MailChimp, InfusionSoft, Marketo, HubSpot and Eloqua.[22]

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Well, i guess since you are reading this review you want to find out what “SAN” is all about and if you should join them. There are plenty of online marketing training programs out there that promise they can show you how to succeed online. Things are rarely that simple. Searching online for more information and reviews before signing up for anything is actually the first step towards success. So, right now you are doing the right thing for wanting to know more.

Bounty Events are available in select countries as referenced in the Appendix (“Special Program Fees”). You will earn Special Program Fees described in this Section 4(a) in connection with “Bounty Events” which occur when (1) a customer, who must be eligible for the Bounty Event as described in the Appendix, clicks through a Special Link on your Site to a bounty-specific homepage on an Amazon Site, and (2) during the resulting Session the customer completes the bounty action described in the Appendix.
Today’s affiliate landscape has evolved from primarily traditional coupon, loyalty, and blog affiliates to now encompass social media influencers, business development partners, and even paid media partners. You need streamlined workflows that make it easy to recruit, onboard and manage each partner on the same platform. You need instant access to performance metrics and actionable insights—and the tools to identify and block fraudulent partners. And you need custom tracking solutions to meet your unique needs.
Michael and Omar didn’t do a very detailed job on the practical aspects of this very insightful and useful sales tactic they’re teaching their audience. They’re not showing their readers which autoresponder service providers are most appropriate for the function of sending emails at the recommended local times to their subscribers, and how to step-by-step go about it. Their readers, especially newbies, who they claim to have in mind, on their sales page, will be groping in the dark when it comes to implementing the methods they teach.
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Except as agreed between you and us in a separate written agreement referencing this Section 5, you will not use any Program Content or Special Link, or otherwise link to an Amazon Site, on or in connection with: (a) any client-side software application (e.g., a browser plug-in, helper object, toolbar, extension, component, or any other application executable or installable by an end user) on any device, including computers, mobile phones, tablets, or other handheld devices (other than Approved Mobile Applications); or (b) any television set-top box (e.g., digital video recorders, cable or satellite boxes, streaming video players, blu-ray players, or dvd players) or Internet-enabled television (e.g., GoogleTV, Sony Bravia, Panasonic Viera Cast, or Vizio Internet Apps).

Most businesses require startup fees as well as a cash flow to finance the products being sold. However, affiliate marketing can be done at a low cost, meaning you can get started quickly and without much hassle. There are no affiliate program fees to worry about and no need to create a product. Beginning this line of work is relatively straightforward.

Learn the definition of affiliate marketing. With affiliate marketing, you agree to promote related products on your blog or website with affiliate link buttons. When visitors to your blog or website click on that affiliate link button, they are redirected to that merchant’s website. If they make a purchase, you receive a commission. The commission on one sale can be anywhere from $1 to $10,000. The amount you can make depends on what kind of product you promote.[25]

Who is your audience? What is your target market or niche? If you're targeting a specific niche like home security then perhaps you only need to sign up to ADT and SpyBase so your products match your audience. There’s no point promoting eco-mattresses to your blog that’s focused on reviewing drones. Again, you could sign up to a network that has a few different options in your field of interest or just go straight to your favourite suppliers and see if they have an affiliate program.

If the advertiser is purchasing inventory with a CPA target, instead of paying per action at a fixed rate, the goal of the effective CPA (eCPA) should always be below the maximum CPA. As described by Yang's Law, eCPA

Does affiliate marketing still work, as Google doesn’t allow affiliate links or the promotion of affiliate links. So I can’t create an ad directing to an affiliate link, and I can’t create a landing page (and promoting the landing page), with a single purpose of sending users to the affiliate link. Except RTB platforms and Blog based SEO that takes years to build, how can I do affiliate marketing ?
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Summary: Copy Paste Commissions is an affiliate marketing system that hypes up the potential of earning $1,000 in less than a day. It does everything else apart from its supposed name, which is Copy and Paste. After paying the premium membership fee, you're taken to several pages of upsells before you get to the product. The system is nothing more than a sales funnel into other products. And you know what I found? All their testimonials are FAKE. (I'll prove to you in my full review below!)
It's deceptive to misrepresent - directly or indirectly - that a product offers a general environmental benefit. Your ads should qualify broad environmental claims - or avoid them altogether - to prevent deception about the specific nature of the benefit. In addition, your ads shouldn't imply significant environmental benefits if the benefit isn't significant. Say a trash bag is labeled "recyclable" without qualification. Because trash bags ordinarily are not separated from other trash for recycling at a landfill or incinerator, it is unlikely that they will be used again. Technically, the bag may be "recyclable," but the claim is deceptive because it asserts an environmental benefit where there is no significant or meaningful benefit.
Cross-platform measurement: The number of marketing channels continues to expand, as measurement practices are growing in complexity. A cross-platform view must be used to unify audience measurement and media planning. Market researchers need to understand how the Omni-channel affects consumer's behaviour, although when advertisements are on a consumer's device this does not get measured. Significant aspects to cross-platform measurement involves de-duplication and understanding that you have reached an incremental level with another platform, rather than delivering more impressions against people that have previously been reached (Whiteside, 2016).[42] An example is ‘ESPN and comScore partnered on Project Blueprint discovering the sports broadcaster achieved a 21% increase in unduplicated daily reach thanks to digital advertising’ (Whiteside, 2016).[42] Television and radio industries are the electronic media, which competes with digital and other technological advertising. Yet television advertising is not directly competing with online digital advertising due to being able to cross platform with digital technology. Radio also gains power through cross platforms, in online streaming content. Television and radio continue to persuade and affect the audience, across multiple platforms (Fill, Hughes, & De Franceso, 2013).[45]

The 900-Number Rule requires that ads for pay-per-call services disclose the cost of the call. Ads for services that promote sweepstakes or games of chance, provide information about a federal program (but are not sponsored by a federal agency), or target individuals under 18 years of age require additional disclosures. Ads for 900-numbers cannot be directed to children under 12 unless the ads deal with a bona fide education service, as defined by the Rule.

In 2006, the most active sectors for affiliate marketing were the adult gambling, retail industries and file-sharing services.[21]:149–150 The three sectors expected to experience the greatest growth are the mobile phone, finance, and travel sectors.[21] Soon after these sectors came the entertainment (particularly gaming) and Internet-related services (particularly broadband) sectors. Also several of the affiliate solution providers expect to see increased interest from business-to-business marketers and advertisers in using affiliate marketing as part of their mix.[21]:149–150

The FTC Act prohibits unfair or deceptive advertising in any medium. That is, advertising must tell the truth and not mislead consumers. A claim can be misleading if relevant information is left out or if the claim implies something that's not true. For example, a lease advertisement for an automobile that promotes "$0 Down" may be misleading if significant and undisclosed charges are due at lease signing.

Every network offers affiliates a way to filter through the numerous offers presented. Take the time to go through the various categories or search for specific merchants that you think would do well on your site. There’s no set of rules for filtering through the options; you’ll ultimately need to rely upon your familiarity with your audience and your gut feelings about what types of offers will perform.

Both Michael Cheney and Omar Martin are super affiliates who have been topping Leaderboard contests for many affiliate products over many years, so Copy Paste Commissions is a collection of all their knowledge, tips and tools where they teach you their best strategies and techniques, to the extent that you are able to “copy paste” their affiliate marketing success.

Produce infographics. Infographics are visual displays of information. They display your content using visual design elements. They can illustrate a point from an article, but they also usually convey a self-contained message. Infographics are effective because they can quickly communicate complex information in a visually-pleasing, easily-understood way.[8] Use infographics to present survey data, explain how your product or service works or to compare products or services.[9]
So you are ready to take the affiliate world by storm. The first big hurdle is to decide what you are going to pay your affiliates. Affiliates who refer sales to you get a commission once a sale (or a different conversion action) is completed. Payments can be either (a) a flat amount (in whatever currency you operate) or (b) a percentage of the total sale (exclusive of taxes and shipping). So, how do you determine what your affiliate program commission rate should be?
Google Autocomplete – go to google.com, start typing a phrase and look at the dropdown autocomplete results. You can use the underscore character “_” to have Google fill-in-the-blank. Just make sure the last character you type is an underscore. Try using plurals and change the word ordering to see different results. This is how I find 90% of my keywords.

Amazing and thorough breakdown of how it all works! Thank you so much for sharing! a group of 3 friends myself + 2 are about to start affiliate marketing together. Since many advertising rules have changed with affiliate marketing (facebook ads etc.) and many articles have not been updated since, weʻd love any advice or suggestions you have for 2018!

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First, you need to be sure you are comfortable with the product you're promoting or selling and you have confidence in the advertiser you are linking to. Check the pages on the advertiser's Web site. If it's something you yourself would never consider purchasing, or it possibly looks a bit unreliable, then chances are your visitors won't be interested in it either. If you're running a content-based site, you don't want to sell anything that might offend visitors or lower their opinion of your site.
The advantages of the affiliate marketing business model for the affiliate are quite obvious to anyone. Having the opportunity to effectively ‘sell stock’ without having any of the costs or responsibilities of manufacturing, buying or storing it is very liberating. In addition to this, when working with a high-paying network like MoreNiche, the profit potential is enormous.
Collaborative Environment: A collaborative environment can be set up between the organization, the technology service provider, and the digital agencies to optimize effort, resource sharing, reusability and communications.[36] Additionally, organizations are inviting their customers to help them better understand how to service them. This source of data is called User Generated Content. Much of this is acquired via company websites where the organization invites people to share ideas that are then evaluated by other users of the site. The most popular ideas are evaluated and implemented in some form. Using this method of acquiring data and developing new products can foster the organizations relationship with their customer as well as spawn ideas that would otherwise be overlooked. UGC is low-cost advertising as it is directly from the consumers and can save advertising costs for the organisation.
Lets talks about what’s not a competitive advantage. Discovering a hot offer, niche, or traffic source before anyone else does. There are thousands of affiliates out there. If it’s making money then others will find out sooner or later. You can’t have a profitable campaign and just cross your fingers hoping no one sees it. You have to take action and build a moat around it.

This is where we put the “marketing” in affiliate marketing. It’s up to you as the affiliate marketer to make sure that your audience sees the affiliate links and offers you have on your site. You can’t simply throw them into the right sidebar and hope that your audience seeks them out and clicks on them. There’s a great deal that you can do to increase the likelihood that your visitors click on the links and get in front of the affiliate offer.

When beginning your affiliate marketing career, you’ll want to cultivate an audience that has very specific interests. This allows you to tailor your affiliate campaigns to that niche, increasing the likelihood that you’ll convert. By establishing yourself as an expert in one area instead of promoting a large array of products, you’ll be able to market to the people most likely to buy the product.

Since you’re essentially a freelancer, you get ultimate independence in setting your own goals, redirecting your path when you feel so inclined, choosing the products that interest you, and even determining your own hours. This convenience means you can diversify your portfolio if you like or focus solely on simple and straightforward campaigns. You’ll also be free from company restrictions and regulations as well as ill-performing teams.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. If you only promote one merchant’s products, you are stuck with their commissions, their landing pages, and ultimately, their conversion rates. It is important to work with many different merchants in your niche and promote a wide range of products. This affiliate marketing strategy will diversify the amount of commissions you make and create a steady stream of revenue when building an affiliate website.
Other than the limited licenses expressly set forth herein, we reserve all right, title and interest (including all intellectual property and proprietary rights) in and to, and you do not, by virtue of this License or otherwise, acquire any ownership interest or rights in or to, the Associates Program, Special Links, link formats, Program Content, PA API, Data Feeds, Product Advertising Content, any domain name owned or operated by us, information and materials on any Amazon Site or the Associates Site, our and our affiliates’ trademarks and logos (including the Amazon Marks), and any other intellectual property and technology that we provide or use in connection with the Associates Program (including any application program interfaces, software development kits, libraries, sample code, and related materials).
They sell ‘coaching modules’ along with ‘marketing methods’ to RECRUIT more suckers into their programs. These are NOT real products and certainly not products that can be sold in the retail space like a REAL business. This makes SAN another RECRUITING BASED CASH GIFTING MONEY GAME with a PYRAMID SCHEME on top of it – Just like M.O.B.E./mttb and Digital Altitude which was just shut down by the FTC. Other money games are 8 FIGURE DREAM LIFESTYLE/TiDom, Business Success Alliance, Big Profit System, etc. It’s just a matter of time they too will get the HAMMER from the FTC.
According to the sales page this is a new take on affiliate marketing that will show you how to make huge commissions easily and without any experience. The problem is that this is basically a regurgitated version of some older programs that Michael created. For proper affiliate marketing you'd be far better off trying my top recommendation instead.
How established is your site/blog/social media following? Do you already have an audience of 1 million or are you just getting started? Early on in your affiliate marketing journey you will probably want to have multiple options to make sure you can cover a broad field. You might want to become an Amazon Associate as well as joining one of the networks so you will have a product link to drop into any posts you do. An easy place to start is to promote the services you are using if you are enjoying their product - web hosting or email management systems like Aweber.

Hi, Jamie! Very good list. I needed something like this for 2018 so that I know what to target in the future blogs I create. As for now, I’m comfortable using SiteGround affiliate network and it’s pretty good actually. Their hosting service is pretty much the best considered its price. I’ve tried others but SiteGround stands out. I’ll also try new affiliate networks, something from the list you have just provided. I think Amazon is too saturated at the moment, and I need a better network. 2018 will be interesting indeed.

Also known as a publisher, the affiliate can be either an individual or a company that markets the seller’s product in an appealing way to potential consumers. In other words, the affiliate promotes the product to persuade consumers that it is valuable or beneficial to them and convince them to purchase the product. If the consumer does end up buying the product, the affiliate receives a portion of the revenue made.

Wow, this was definitely an information explode but very good information. Without even joining the program I can feel the frustration of upsells and never-ending talking videos of what you are just about to get. This drives my crazy. I’ve jumped in some sellers like this in the past and I wanted to run away because that didn’t sound right at all. The same feeling I have with this program reading your review.

Affiliate marketing has become a massive online industry over the past several years, emerging as both an effective way for marketers to sell their products and services and for publishers to monetize their audiences. Despite the popularity of affiliate marketing, many publishers still aren’t aware of exactly what affiliate marketing is or how it works. In some cases, these publishers are gatekeepers to an audience that could be very effectively monetized through affiliate marketing, meaning that they’re passing up an attractive revenue stream.

Hey. Yes you can use just one website to promote multiple affiliate programs, but I’d say that your website should focus on just one niche. So you mention, SellHealth, that would lead me to believe your site is about health and fitness. I would then advise you to stick to that niche rather than promoting unrelated products like dog leashes and fashion accessories.

Some advertisers offer multi-tier programs that distribute commission into a hierarchical referral network of sign-ups and sub-partners. In practical terms, publisher "A" signs up to the program with an advertiser and gets rewarded for the agreed activity conducted by a referred visitor. If publisher "A" attracts publishers "B" and "C" to sign up for the same program using his sign-up code, all future activities performed by publishers "B" and "C" will result in additional commission (at a lower rate) for publisher "A".

Some advertisers offer multi-tier programs that distribute commission into a hierarchical referral network of sign-ups and sub-partners. In practical terms, publisher "A" signs up to the program with an advertiser and gets rewarded for the agreed activity conducted by a referred visitor. If publisher "A" attracts publishers "B" and "C" to sign up for the same program using his sign-up code, all future activities performed by publishers "B" and "C" will result in additional commission (at a lower rate) for publisher "A".

Upon your request but subject to our approval, we may issue you additional “sub-tag” Associate IDs that permit you to monitor and optimize the performance of your Special Links by including different sub-tags in the URLs of different Special Links. Under no circumstances may you associate any sub-tag with a specific end user of your Site (e.g., you may not dynamically assign sub-tags to users as they arrive on your Site for purposes of monitoring such users’ behavior).
It is increasingly advantageous for companies to use social media platforms to connect with their customers and create these dialogues and discussions. The potential reach of social media is indicated by the fact that in 2015, each month the Facebook app had more than 126 million average unique users and YouTube had over 97 million average unique users.[27]
In this example, a blogger might put this link on their blog to try to get their readers to click through to your “blue widget” page and hopefully buy something. If the visitor who clicks on this link actually buys something, affiliate tracking software will automatically (usually – depends on what system you are using) pay your affiliate a percentage of the sale.
Promote services. Think of the services you use and that your readers are likely to use. For example, a parenting blogger could promote child care or tutoring services. With services, you are likely to earn repeat commissions as visitors to your blog may purchase from the service on a recurring basis. Typical commissions for service affiliate programs range from 15 percent to 30 percent. Some service affiliate programs may pay even higher commissions, depending on what the service is.[35]
The pay-per-sale and pay-per-click structures should be pretty obvious. Under a pay-per-lead arrangement, affiliates can get paid even if the merchant doesn’t generate any revenue. In most cases, this would involve earning a commission when a referral starts a free trial to a service. Even if they never pay for that service after the trial expires, the commission is earned.
Copy Paste Commissions is made up of a downloadable eBook, downloadable MP3 audio files, and downloadable MP4 video files. The vendors teach certain affiliate marketing methods through these media. Whether or not these media are worth your money and whether or not the methods taught in them will make you money, as their vendors claim, is what this review is all about.